In a region known for experience occurring in the cloud, on the net and through a virtual reality, City Art Cooperative in San Francisco, CA focuses on a single physical space and the objects that 200 artists create. Twelve times a year the gallery walls and pedestals, laden with an ever-changing display, transform and the […]
Union of Rose Cultivators Agricultural Sales Cooperatives
Rose and attar of roses are agricultural products that are known and used in each and every part of the world. In addition, attar of roses is one of the most important raw materials that is used in perfume and cosmetics industry. Rose damascane, which is one of the most significant types of rose in […]
Co-operative empowerment in the red light district
1849 – San Francisco heaved with gold-seeking miners and the sailors that had transported them into the Bay from as far away as Australia. The Barbary Coast, the town’s red light district with its pimps, petty thieves and dance halls, drew these travellers in. 1997 – the historic Barbary Coast still plays home to the […]
Providing security through SACCOs in Ethiopia
How does one address the perennial pecuniary insecurity of workers, which often places them at the mercy (and greed) of loan sharks? What options do workers have other than pleading for loans and advances from their employers whenever they are faced with financial problems? What can be done to provide some kind of social protection […]
A flow of member benefits
We sell plumbing gear to plumbers who are mainly our members, each with an equal vote. That’s the succinct description of the Plumber Supplies Co-operative (PSC) given by Tony Rogic, its general manager, sales. And it applied equally well when the co-operative was formed back in 1955. At that time Australian tradespeople faced a post-war […]
Working Together to Kill Zombies
Die2Nite is a computer game about zombies. But it is also, according to one review, an interactive piece of social commentary, in which you join 39 other players in a town repeatedly beset upon by the living dead. Its your choice whether or not to help the community or live (and die) alone. With its […]
COOTRASERVICORD CTA: Successful Experiences
It used to be that a public company provided the critical service of maintaining water and sewage facilities for the people of Monteria, Columbia. However, when the company faced liquidation, several former employees recognized a crucial need in their community. They banded together to make sure the water and sewage network and systems did not […]
Building Italy for over a century
From humble origins CMB stands for Cooperativa Braccianti e Muratori, the cooperative of labourers and bricklayers, and Carpi is a small town in Emilia-Romagna CMB Carpi has grown to become one of Italys top ten construction groups, building motorways, hospitals and shopping centres all over the country. The original cooperatives, the Cooperativa Braccianti […]
From Paraffin stoves to steel
In post-civil war Spain’s Basque country, a group of young, working class graduates with few job prospects founded a small co-operative to build paraffin stoves. They then began to set up other co-operative business ventures. When they needed capital for expansion, they started their own co-operative bank. These young people had been taught the ways […]
From nothing to the fastest growing medical clinic in the province
December 2001, Argentina. The Argentine economy is in ruins, the peso-denominated bank accounts of its middles classes have been frozen in the corralito as it is colloquially referred to, while the foreign-denominated bank accounts of its wealthy elite are protected. Downtown in Argentinas second largest city, Córdoba, a private medical clinic is on its last […]